Alexander Goodall’s richly illustrated diaries, kept from the age of 17, provide an entertaining window into a young man’s daily life in the 1890s.

Goodall was a passionate supporter of the Geelong Football Club. In August 1895 he wrote in his diary: “Heavy rain and hail, very cold. Lively football match … mud and slush no object!”

Of a match in August 1897, he commented: “Geelong v Essendon on the ground. Enormous crowd. Blue White defeated! Intense grief!!!”

Not much has changed for many fans of the blue-and-white hoops. The game might have changed a good bit but football and high emotion still go hand in hand more than 120 years after Alexander Goodall recorded his angst.

In fact, the italics above are how the State Library of Victoria introduces Goodall’s remarkable diaries, penned between 1892 and 1897, to its online visitors.

The young Post and Telegraph Office clerk succumbed to tuberculosis in 1901 at only 26. But his vividly illustrated and sharply written diaries, youthful observations as they might be, are as bright and incisive a picture of early Geelong as any daguerreotype or glass-plate emulsion image from the 19th century.

Goodall captured wild parties, footy match brawls, snake charmers, brass bands, military parades, bicycle riders, euchre players, lighthouses, drunks, picnics, Chinese processions …

Curiosity and humour characterise his writings and his cartoon caricatures capture the everyday life, sport, diversions and entertainment of the bustling and energetic life of old Geelong.

For instance, on July 1, 1895, Goodall wrote of the Edison Kinetoscope peepshow at Geelong: “At Exhibition Theatre today, Edison’s marvellous invention. Five scenes on views, The Indian War Dance, The Boxing Cats, The Skirt Dancer, Buffalo Bill and Sandow the Strong Man.”

Goodall expounded on visitors such as war artist Federick Villiers and his adventures in the Russo-Turkish War, the bombardment of Alexandria, the Abyssinian mission and the Chino-Japanese war.

Barbershop shaves, housefires, marine scenes, horse and cart transports, gym workouts, operas, all sorts of industry and commerce … little escaped Goodall’s scrutiny in pen and word.

Mortlake-born, he moved to northern Victoria’s Rochester as his lungs posed problems before returning south to Geelong. He married nurse Marguerite Favarger in 1900 but died only five months later.

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